Bovril, Broons and bonny backdrops: A day in the life of a football photographer
Nutmeg's resident snapper breaks down his process - and how he reaches the end of a game without having a clue what the score was
Alan McCredie - in the company of Nutmeg’s Daniel Gray - marked the 150th year of the Scottish Cup by following every round of the historic competition, from hamlet to Hampden. The result is a beautiful photo essay book - Cup Tied - which might be too big for your average Christmas stocking, but nonetheless is an essential purchase for the football fan in your life. Please support Nutmeg by clicking the ‘Buy’ button at the end.
Here, Alan recounts his trip to Camelon Juniors for their first-round Scottish Cup tie with Civil Service Strollers - a trip which features in Cup Tied. Ever wonder what a photographer does at a football match? You’re about to find out…
By Alan McCredie
If I’m photographing a match on a Saturday — unlike 1980s footballers in the ‘Focus On’ section of Shoot! magazine — I won’t be rising late and then having a light pasta lunch before the match. I will spend the morning mostly worrying whether I should take the cushion for the seat I sit on if I’m pitch-side. I always want to but never do, for fear of appearing a hopeless lightweight in front of the real sports photographers.
However this morning is different — I am at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland no less, where my monthly in-person weekend session for my Master’s Degree is taking place. A Saturday morning wrestling with my chosen theme of Existentialism and the Racial Approach of Photography in 19th Century Colonial Africa is not really holding my attention — mainly because I will shortly be swapping Camus for Camelon, as that is my destination this afternoon for a hopefully roustabout cup-tie between Camelon Juniors and the Civil Service Strollers.
As regular readers of Nutmeg may have noticed, when Daniel Gray and I embark on our match photostory, food tends to be a recurring theme. The football ground snack bar is always a major draw, and comparing the price of a Bovril between various Scottish football grounds is as accurate a measure as any of the inequalities that bedevil the sport (£1.50 today at Camelon).
However, for me, I always feel like the small boy with his face pressed against the cake shop window — I have yet to work out how to consume a hot pie, bridie or, god-forgive-me, a pizza slice while simultaneously carrying a pair of heavy cameras and a cushionless seat. I occasionally toy with the idea of gnawing on a hot dog like a Churchillian reformed-meat cigar as it seems the most hands-free of all snacks, but have never as yet sunk so low.
But what of the football, I hear you cry? Well, what indeed. It seems to be a universal truth that the lower down the football pyramid you go the more alluring the ground in terms of photography. Greenock Morton, Queen of the South and Ayr United are, of course, honourable exceptions to this — and as such embody the last dying rays of civilisation.
Happily, Camelon’s Carmuirs Park, like Maggie from the Broons, is a wee stoater. For the type of football photography I do, the setting is everything. The ability to wander around all four sides of a ground really only exists in the lower leagues now and is the reason I find covering matches at the larger grounds so uninspiring.
I usually pay very little attention to what is happening on the pitch (a wise move for a St Johnstone fan) and instead tend to be looking everywhere else. Quite often I only have the haziest idea what the final score is in the matches I’m covering. The stories that appeal most to me are those that happen around the periphery of the pitch, both inside and outside the grounds; it often seems that what happens on the pitch is just something that gets in the way of a nice day out. It really is photographing football without photographing football.
Today’s match between Camelon and Civil Service Strollers has been great. It’s a game of three penalties which has resulted in both jubilation and ultimately consternation for the mighty Camelon Ultras (average age 12), although how the Strollers penalty-kick taker held his nerve for a late winner under their high-pitched taunts is beyond me.
The ground was freshly repainted in bright scarlet for the occasion, and is watched from the greatest stand in Scottish football — a two-man affair, situated in the next-door garden with no ban on fags or cans of Fosters. I can wander freely right round the ground and this allows me to look for different angles and viewpoints to photograph from — different sections of the crowd allow for a range of shots depending on the score and whether they are home or away fans.
I always stay until the end of the match as I like to get a shot of the supporters streaming out of the gates after the full-time whistle. It always reminds me of a Lowry painting or old newsreels of workers leaving the Govan shipyards at the end of their shift. I usually only get a few stragglers trudging past me but it’s always worth a try.
And then into the car for the drive home — I always have the scores on the radio as it’s the perfect end to a day of football, and can be quite useful in letting me know the score in the game I’ve just spent and hour and a half photographing.
